This page takes a detailed look at how carrots were illustrated in some of the famous
Materia Medica Manuscripts and Early Printed Books.
(most images have a larger version, please check the hyperlinks) Read some of
the significant references in Ancient
Herbals here.

NEWS - The World Carrot Museum has the
honour of having an article published in the renowned academic journal Chronica
Horticulturae. Co-authored with Jules Janick, the James Troop Distinguished
Professor in Horticulture, Department of Horticulture & Landscape Architecture,
Purdue University. The item is called Carrot History and
Iconography, a fascinating journey through the Carrot's development from Wild
to Domesticated Orange and beyond. Full copy here (page
13 onwards). Extract here.

A manuscript is
hand written information that has been manually created by one or more
people, as opposed to being printed or reproduced some other
way. The term may also be used for information that is hand-recorded in other
ways than writing, for example inscriptions that are chiselled upon a hard
material or scratched (the original meaning of graffiti) as with a knife point
in plaster or with a stylus on a waxed tablet (the way Romans made notes), or
are in cuneiform writing, impressed with a pointed stylus in a flat tablet of
unbaked clay. (Left - Tractatus de herbis (Herbal); De Simplici Medicina ;
Circa instans; Antidotarium Nicolai, 1280-1310, Egerton MS 747 f. 33 Carrot -
Source: British Library Illuminated Manuscripts).

Carrots are said to have been recognised as one of the plants in the garden of
the Egyptian king Merodach-Baladan in the eighth century B.C. There is no
documentary evidence for this and the clay tablet, held in British Museum, with
cuneiform inscription gives a list of plants in the garden of an earlier
Babylonian king, Marduk-apla-iddina, the Biblical Merodach-Baladan, who reigned
at Babylon in 721–710 and 703 BC.

It would probably have been placed
amongst the aromatic herbs along with fennel, suggesting that the root was
discounted, using only the pleasantly scented flowers and leaves in cooking. Merodach Baladan was the king of Babylon in 702 b.c., a Chaldean and father of
Nabopolassar and grandfather of Nebuchadnezzar.

The clay tablet is shown right
here (British Museum). It lists 67 plants and appear in two columns,
subdivided into groups, perhaps to represent plant beds. Only 26 plant names
have been identified with certainty including leeks, onion garlic,
lettuce,radish, cucumber, gherkin, cardamom, caraway, dill, thyme, oregano,
fennel, coriander, cumin and fenugreek.Many remain to be identified. Carrot is currently
not amongst those identified, though some of the above identified are
umbellifers.

One of the first late medieval herbals to depict plants
and vegetables accurately, although it may have been based on a now lost
Byzantine prototype. Such illustrated handbooks of health, as well as numerous
herbals, offer a rich visual record of the sorts of vegetables deemed worthy
by the physicians and for the dining table in that period.

Colours in illustrations obviously degrade over time depending on such
factors as type and availability of materials used and storage methods. If
then you also factor in personal artistic interpretation, the colours we currently see in
manuscripts and hand coloured books may well have changed over time and cannot
be regarded as definitive.

Another point to bear in mind is that many manuscripts are copies, or
interpretations of earlier manuscripts. This is evident in another paper
co-authored by the Carrot Museum Curator - "Synteny of Images in Three
Illustrated Dioscoridean Herbals: Juliana Anicia Codex (JAC), Codex Neapolitanus
(NAP), and Morgan 652" - where it was concluded that M652 illustrations are
based on images from both JAC and NAP. A database of the three herbals is
available online
www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/herbalimages. It was previously shown that 44%
of the images in JAC and NAP are common to both herbals.

The above-ground parts of plants tend to be showy, but often the roots are hidden
from view. Though roots are endowed with the beauty of nature, they are enmeshed
with the mystery of the unknown. Roots have been both a boon and hazard to humans.
They have been used as drugs and poisons and as food. They have been the sources
of comfort in myths of fairies and forest nymphs, as well as a source of fear in
popular legends of devils and curses. A rich association has existed between
people and roots throughout and before the development of "civilized" societies.
This relationship was most often one of dependence on roots as a source of food,
then medicine. But sometimes because of their appearance, colour, odour or
actual chemical properties roots were given a special importance by ancient
peoples.

Herbals are a particularly interesting group in the history of written
communication in that they have always been in circulation since the antiquities
and were not 'rediscovered' during the Renaissance.

Despite the faithful transcription of the manuscript text by monastic
scribes, distortions inevitably crept in as the work passed from one hand to the
next. Greater variation exists among the illustrations which were often painted
without reference to the living world. Regional variation in both plant types
and knowledge as well as differences in editorial control also contributed over
a thousand years of copying to a body of herbal manuscripts deriving from a few
ancient sources.

This all makes for a complex history but there are two lines or branches
generally identified in classifying the lineage of a herbal. Perhaps the most
important is the five volume pharmacopoeia/herbal, 'De Materia Medica' by
Dioscorides from the first century AD, which represents the Greek/Arabic
tradition. This work also supplies much of the textual origin for the other
branch, the latin tradition, referred to as Pseudo-Apuleius
(sometimes called Apuleius Platonic, to distinguish him or them from a number of
other authors from the middle ages called Apuleius). The original Pseudo-Apuleius
Herbal was produced in about the 5th century AD.

(Photo, compliments of the Smithsonian Digital
Collection of Early manuscripts.)

Like other manuscript books, herbals were "published" through repeated
copying by hand, either by professional scribes or by the readers
themselves. In the process of making a copy, the copyist would often
translate, expand, adapt, or reorder the content. Most of the original
herbals have been lost; many have survived only as later copies (of copies
of copies!), and many others are known only through references from other
texts, with pictures not made from direct natural observation. They tend to follow the same pattern - the plant's
physical appearance, smell, taste and natural habitat, followed by a
discussion on any known medicinal qualities, culinary virtues, and then
any useful products obtained from the plants roots, leaves, seeds or
flowers. Sadly colour variations (of carrot) were rarely described until
much later.

European herbal medicine is rooted in the works of classical writers such as
Pliny the Elder who wrote Historia Naturalis (here);
and Dioscorides (here), a Greek physician and author of the first known illustrated guide
to medicinal plants whose De Materia Medica (78 C. E.) formed the basis of herbals in Europe for 1,500 years
and the most influential herbal of all time.

For most of human history, people have relied on herbalism for at least some
of their medicinal needs, and this remains true for more than half of the
world's population in the twenty-first century. Much of our modern pharmacopoeia
also has its roots in the historical knowledge of medicinal plants.

A commentary on references and imagery from some of the
significant manuscripts through the ages.

The oldest known manuscript of Dioscorides work is the Juliana Anicia Codex (ca. 512 A.D.), housed
in the Austrian National Library in Vienna. Listed as Codex Vindobonensis
Medicus Graecus 1, it is better known as the “Vienna Dioscorides,” the oldest and
most valuable work in the history of botany and pharmacology. Similar
images are also included in Codex Neapolitanus, shown below, a 6th century manuscript which
drew heavily on the images contained in the above mentioned AD 512 "Vienna" Codex.

The World Carrot Museum has
the honour of having an article published in the renowned academic journal Chronica
Horticulturae, co-authored with Jules Janick, the James Troop Distinguished
Professor in Horticulture, Department of Horticulture & Landscape Architecture,
Purdue University (USA). The item is called Carrot History and
Iconography a fascinating journey through the Carrot's development from Wild
to Orange and beyond. Full copy here (page
13 onwards). Extract here.

There are many surviving
manuscripts of De Materia Medica after Codex Vindobonensis, an important example
being the seventh-century Greek alphabetic Codex Neapolitanus, in the possession
of a Neapolitan monastery for many years, and then presented to Emperor Charles
VI in 1717. It was taken to Vienna and subsequently to the Bibliotheca Nazionale
in Naples. Some of the drawings in Codex Neapolitanus are thought to be from the same source as Codex Vindobonensis,
but are smaller and grouped together on fewer pages.

This plant which is called pastinace silvatice or wild carrots,
grows in sandy soils and hills.

1. If a woman has difficulty in giving birth, thae the plant we call
pasticanna sivatica (willd carrot or parsnip), simmer it in water, and
give it so that she can bathe herself with it. She will be healed.

2. For a woman's cleansing, take the same plant, pastinaca, simmer
it in water, and when it is soft, mix it well and give it to drink. She
will be cleansed."
read
more here.

Morgan Manuscript MS652, - written in Greek miniscule and illuminated in
Constantinople during the mid-10th century, contains an alphabetical five-book
version of Dioscorides, De Materia Medica, including 769 illustrations, Constantinople
around ad 960. (Images courtesy of Morgan Pierpoint Library,
New York)

The late 11th century witnessed an intriguing
script from Bury St Edmonds in England - MS Bodley 130 -
a handwritten manuscript
containing a copy of a much earlier Latin text; its illustrations are similarly
inherited. The original illustrated text had been compiled in the late Roman
period (4th or 5th century) relying on Greek sources.

Known as "Pseudo-Apuleius, Dioscorides,
Herbals (extracts); De virtutibus bestiarum in arte medicinae, in Latin and
English", St Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury; c. 1070-1100. This apparently shows a diagram of an orange carrot,
which, according to most other historical records did not appear until the 15th
century. So another mystery in the origins of modern carrot.

"The script indicated that It grows in stony places and mounds." and "For women who suffer at
childbirth and are not purged. - With 'Herba pastinaca', cooked, together with
the same water in which it was cooked, you take 30 peppercorns; mix together and
give to drink; she will be purged.

The same recipe as written above also works against
toothache."
Further evidence of the use
by the ancients of Pastinaca for both carrot and parsnip.

Much more background information, including a full translation of the script together with a larger photo are included on a separate page
here.

Important Copyright Notice: The image (right) appears with the kind permission of the Bodleian
Library and is copyright and any use is restricted by law. Any unauthorised
copying or reproduction will constitute an infringement of copyright.

The script is held by the Bodleian Library of Oxford University
as part of its collection of illuminated mediaeval manuscripts.

Similar scripts shown below - MS. Ashmole 1462 and MS Ashmole 1431 contain the same Pseudo-Apuleian text as MS. Bodl. 130,
although
with some slight variations in wording.

You may notice a typo! "Pasnatica" instead of "Pastinaca" - a typical
transcription error in such scripts. This again gives a remedy for
toothache. Otherwise the same recipes and place names as in the MS Bodley script
referred to above.

The carrot leaves and flower do look quite accurate and no doubt orange is the
root colour!
Click on photos for full picture - note this a large file and
will take a while to download.

MS Ashmole 1431 -
Pastinaca (Carrot)

MS. Ashmole 1462 - Pastinaca Silvatica

Important Copyright Notice: The
images (above) appear with the kind permission of the Bodleian Library and are
copyright and any use is restricted by law. Any unauthorised copying or
reproduction will constitute an infringement of copyright.

The script is held by the Bodleian Library of Oxford University
as part of its collection of illuminated mediaeval manuscripts.

This 10th century image shows Pastinaca Silvatica, which
herbalists also knew as wild carrot or parsnip.
(900-1000 a.d.)

It taken from a version of the Pseudo-Apuleius the author of a
Herbarium or
De herbarum virtutibus, also referred as
Herbarium Apuleii Platonici; which is a medical herbal of the 5th century,
A.D. (see above)

A 10th century manuscript
of the work is in the Musee Meermanno Westreenianum, Holland.

Den Haag, MMW, 10 D 7 (left) is an image from the 10th century
version of the Pseudo Apulieus.

Tractatus de herbis (Herbal) - De Simplici MedicinaEgerton MS 747-
(Right - Egerton MS 747 f. 33 Carrot). This is held by the British
Library
and was produced between 1280 and1310 and is probably an original
manuscript of Tractus de Herbis a type of medicinal herbal which was to become
one of the most influential texts on medicinal plants between the 14th and 16th
centuries.

Written by Bartholomaei Mini de Senis; Platearius; Nicolaus of Salerno, it
contains miniature illustrations of plants in colours, usually several on a
page, together with their medicinal uses inherited from Greek, Roman and Arabic
sources. It also covered instructions on how to prepare each fruit or vegetable.
This manuscript contains the earliest known copy of "Circa Instans", and sought
to enhance the text only original by including images of plants referred to, and
expanding on the list of substances used in medicine at the time.

In some cases it gives suggestions on the aphrodisiac, cosmetic and magical
properties of herbs.

The illustrations are drawn from life wherever possible to produce identifiable
likenesses but over the centuries these herbals were copied repeatedly by
scribes and artists who were anxious to reproduce the books in front of them.
Haste, lack of skill and misunderstandings frequently resulted in plant images
that were simplified, distorted and often unrecognisable!

It contains numerous miniatures of plants in colours, usually several on a page.
Initials in red or blue, some with penwork decoration in the other colour.
This is the record for Daucus. (picture right)

The ‘Circa instans’ was an extremely popular text. Preserved in
about 240 surviving manuscripts, and translated into several
vernacular languages (English, French, German, Italian, Dutch,
Danish, Hebrew and Serbian), it was first printed in 1497 in
Venice. It also became an authoritative source for several other
herbals, pharmacological collections, and encyclopedias, at least
until the 16th century.

Pharmacy was one of the pillars of medical therapy during
antiquity and the Middle Ages. Medicaments were derived from the
natural world (plants, minerals and animals), and resulted from
the combination of different substances, each with specific
properties and therapeutic effects.

Finally, we should not forget that the ‘Circa instans’ was not
only read and used for medical purposes. It also became the basis
for a tradition of illustrated herbals conveying visual knowledge
of the natural world, and often produced for reading pleasure
rather than practical purposes.

Wellcome Collection MS335 - c 1490 (Parsnip left - pastinaca silvaticae
and Carrot right named as Pastinaca domestica). (the leaves appear to be
parsnip but the author tries to distinguish the root color and the carrot
flowers are correct).

(Herbal in Latin, partly in French with 116 water-colour
illustrations of plants. Preceded by medical receipts,)

Tacuinum Sanitatis - Lavishly illustrated manuscripts known as the
Tacuinum Sanitatis were first
commissioned by northern Italian nobility during the last decades of the 14th
century.

These manuscripts were based on an 11th century Arabic manuscript known as
the Taqwim al-Sihha bi al-Ashab al- Sitta (Rectifying Health by Six Causes),
which was a guide for healthy living written by the Christian physician and
philosopher Abu al- Hasan al-Mukhtar ibn al-Hasan ibn ‘Abdun ibn Sa’dun Ibn
Butlan (d. 1063), who was born and educated in Baghdad and whose travels took
him to localities that are today in Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Israel, and Turkey. The Taqwim was a guide for healthy living, based on ancient philosophical concepts
of Greek sciences. It summarized in tabular form information on some 280
health-related items, in particular food and especially vegetables and fruits.

Carrot (possibly parsnip, based on leaf form) labelled
pastinace, a gardener harvests very long and narrow, pale yellow roots of a
species, which some authorities have identified as parsnip, Pastinaca sativa,
on the basis of the colour of the roots and the shape of the leaves

Roma
4182 folio 49r. In a similar scene to Vienna (left) and also labelled pastinace a
gardener is busy harvesting a root crop, the foliage of which is comprised
of many small, slightly dentate leaflets. The long, thin roots, either
purple or light yellow, intermingled in the foreground row and in the
harvested pile clearly represent carrot, The Latin text reports
that pastinace stimulates sexual intercourse but slows down digestion, and
that the purple type, ripe in winter, is the best.

The Historia Plantarum (1395) is an interesting and historically significant
source about medicine and also about the everyday life of the Middle Ages.
According to medieval doctors, various elements were needed for a healthy
lifestyle: proper diet, exercise and enough sleep, and a balanced emotional
state. A life in harmony with nature was recommended. This guaranteed people
health and well-being. The illuminated manuscript is illustrated with over five
hundred illustrations of plants in alphabetical order. The depictions convey an
astoundingly detailed and imposing overview of the thorough knowledge about
plant life, which one possessed in late medieval Italy. In addition to these
botanical pictures
come more than eighty illustrations of animals, from which one obtained healing
remedies, as well as over 30 depictions of mineral derivatives.

Prominent Previous Owners - The manuscript was made at the end of the 14th
century at the court of Gian Galeazzo Visconti. The ruler was the most powerful
and glorious scion of the great Visconti family and created during his reign one
of the most impressive collections of unbelievably valuable book treasures. Gian
Galeazzo presented the splendid Historia Plantarum to Wenzel IV, King of Bohemia
and Germany, with whom he forged a good political relationship. Today the
medical encyclopedia is found in the Biblioteca Casanatense in Rome. (Image
right fol 85r daucus creticus (cretan carrot)

Historia Plantarum - Known as MS 459 Historia Plantarum (Biblioteca
Casanatense, Ms. 459) (1395-40) - An encyclopedia of natural
science, in which plants, minerals, animals are deciphered with particular
reference to their medical and therapeutic properties.This manuscript
is one of several that are derivatives of the Tacuinum Sanitatis, a medieval
healthy living guide which is a Latin translation of an 11th Century Arab
medical treatise, Taqwīm as-sihha bi al-Ashab al-Sitta, written by the Christian
physician and philosopher Ibn Butlan of Baghdad (d. 1063) . The Taqwīm
synthesised a variety of Greek-derived medical science and traditions and
considered approximately 280 health-related items including food, drink,
climate, bodily activities and clothing The translation into Latin was
commissioned by the Court of Naples and Sicily and completed by 1266. (source -
The Cucurbitaceae and Solanaceae illustrated in medieval
manuscripts known as the Tacuinum Sanitatis).
(main source)

The Codex contains 295 large format images that make up the
manuscript, followed by over five hundred illustrations of plants. The quality
and finish provides a detailed and impressive picture of the vastness of
knowledge of the plant world reached in Italy at the end of the Middle Ages.

This Latin version was copied repeatedly and circulated around Europe, with the
first illustrated copies being commissioned in the late 14th Century by northern
Italian nobility (source).
The codex is beautifully illuminated by the workshop of Giovannino de 'Grassi.

Derivative copies merged abbreviated versions of the
Tacuinum sanitatis (usually the entries regarding food) with medical
encyclopaedias and/or Theoprastus' Historia Plantarum, an early botanical
handbook that included the medical uses of plants. This copy consists of the
Historia Plantarum followed by some Tacuinum sanitatis entries.

There is some ambiguity between the text and
the image. It refers to parsnip and yet the image is described in carrot terms.
e.g. (rough translation)"The
plant starts from a tripartite carrot with black marks that wrap around it, the
stem is very high, the first leaves branch off at the middle of the stem on
racemes of five palmate laminae, deeply incised, toothed; these present the
reason for the chromatic division of the page; however, since the leaf is
normally palminervia (leaf whose main nerves are born from the point of union
between the limbus and the petiole.), with a division so marked along the axis
of symmetry, a paradoxical and absolutely unrealistic effect is created. The
umbrellas, five in number, have elegant skeletal bracts and are equally
stylized. The flower has now closed, bringing the flowers to maturity, the image
of the collected inflorescence forms a network of rays that converge at the apex
of the scape and form a weave (stylized with a net motif) at the base of the
Umbrella itself."

Here is a rough translation of the text
relating to daucus cretica in respect of its medicinal qualities:

Uses - The dauco cretico is also known as the wild
parsnip. It is warm at the beginning and end of the third degree. It is a fairly
well-known herb. Its flowers and above all the seeds enter into the preparation
of medicines, minus the leaves and the root. They are of two species: the dauco
cretico and the dauco asinino. The cretico is of greater utility and is so
called because it is found mainly on the island of Crete. It is highly
effective. The asinino (donkey) takes the place of the cretico because this is
present in small quantities. It enjoys high efficacy in flowers, seeds, leaves
and even in the root. It can be kept for a year and must be renewed every year.
It enjoys the virtue of dissolving stone, and aiding the break of wind. It is
diuretic and thinner than matter. Against cold, asthma and wet and cold cough is
given in with a decoction of dried figs. Against the cold phlegm a bag of dust
made with this leaves and well heated is placed on the head. (a poultice)

Against the pain of the stomach due to windiness and against stranguary, dysuria
(difficulty in urination) and colitis disorders for chilling, the wine of its
decoction is given and the grass is also placed in a large quantity cooked in
wine and oil over the sore place. Against the stranguary and dysuria, against
the pain of the liver from cold and against dropsy is made a syrup with the
juice of its decoction of seeds. Against the hardness of the spleen and liver
the leaves are is placed in large quantities in the wine and in the oil and is
macerated in them for 10 days. On the eleventh day it is cooked until only the
oil remains, the leaves are is squeezed well and the pouring is put on the fire
to join the wax and make the plaster.

Against the hardnesses and the other apostemes (swelling filled with puss) is sufficiently suitable,
according to Constantine.

Livre des Simples Medicines - Codex Bruxellensis iv MS 1024
written in the 15th century, and became the basis of all English herbals of the
16th century. Daucus Cretensis (wild carrot) is depicted in a drawing in the
original manuscript. (right - image from Wellcome Library collection, (Image right and continuance
here)

Translation - It is a fairly common
plant which has a flower as wide as flowers of the elder tree, and in the
middle it has a little red spot. It grows best in dry places. There are
two kinds: one is called daucus creticus because it grows in Crete, the
other is called daucus asinus because donkeys eat it. Daucus creticus is
the better kind. Its greatest virtue is in the flower and the root, for
the plant has hardly any virtue. It should be picked when it flowers, the
root removed and put to dry in the shade. It keeps its qualities for a
year.

It lightens and disperses the humors, and it is diuretic because of the
fine quality of its substance. For asthma provoked by a cold humor and for
a cold moist cough, give the decoction of this plant with dried figs and
wine. For cold catarrh, fill a sachet with powdered carrot and place it
hot on the head. To ease stomach pain caused by flatulence and cold humors,
stranguary, dysury and impossibility of urinating, pain in the lower
belly, colic and gripes, give wine in which this plant has cooked and at
the same time cook large quantities of the plant with wine and oil and
apply this to the painful places. To treat stone and impossibility of
urinating, give the wine in which carrot and saxifrage seed have been
cooked.

For obstruction of the liver and spleen caused by cold, and for dropsy,
make a syrup of fennel juice with the decoction of this plant. To relieve
hardness of the liver and spleen, put to soak in wine and oil for ten days
a large amount of this plant, boil until the oil has disappeared, then
strain. Put some wax into this filtrate and make an ointment. This is very
effective in reducing hardness of apostumes.

This contains a recipe for a "good drink to cure Dyspnea" - Difficulty in
breathing, often associated with lung or heart disease and resulting in
shortness of breath.
Also called air hunger.

Click on picture for full text in German.

(source Botanicus.org)

This illustration from an Italian Herbal in 1500 shows one plant,
top, "Pastinacha," probably (family Umbelliferae) (usually but not always!
Parsnip) but perhaps Athamanta cretensis three compound branchings from a
vertical stem, green with white roots and white berries. Figures
associated with plant, "Pastinacha," apparently in reference to its use to
promote lactation, evidenced by a nude woman holding a baby (also nude),
which presses its face against her breast and touches it with its hand. .

This document has a notation that acreage is grown of the 'gelb' carrot
near Cologne, but a 'roter' (red) is grown near Strassburg. Since the
descriptions both use the word robe, which can be translated as beet, I
don't know if the discussion about the two types means a yellow and a more
reddish carrot or a yellow carrot and a red beet or not.

It does seem that the illustration and attribution as daucia signifies
a carrot, and there is the notation that the gelb (yellow) one is found in
the wild.

Wellcome Collection MS 342 -

German drawings with names,
anonymous -

Moren (current German = "mohren") 16th century

(below)

Adam Lonitzer - Frankfurt 1582 - A further very early manuscript clearly shows an orange root, from Germany.
Adam Lonitzer a German botanist, noted for his 1577 revised version of Eucharius
Rösslin's herbal, wrote Kreuterbuch including - "Pastenachen Mören
Pastinaca sativa, & sylvestris".

(Photo, below compliments of the Smithsonian Digital
Collection of Early manuscripts.)

Leonhart Fuchs 1542 -
The author of the Historia Stirpium, (On the History of Plants)
Leonhart Fuchs (1501-1566), is known as the third of the German fathers of
Botany, after Otto Brunfels and Jerome Bock. In fact, Fuchs work was greatly
inspired by the Herbarum vivae icones(1530-6) of Brunfels; based upon
personal observation, Brunfels work was pioneering in dramatically changing the
quality of botanical illustration. Fuchs' great herbal, however, was conceived
on a much larger scale than the herb books of his immediate predecessors.

Like most botanical books of its time, “Fuchs’
Herbal” (as it is commonly known) consists largely of “commentaries” on
Dioscorides. His aim was to reproduce each plant from life, and he stated
in his dedicatory epistle that this was done for no other reason than that 'a
picture expresses things more surely and fixes them more deeply in the mind than
the bare words of the text'. Each illustration was therefore based upon the
appearance of the living plant; furthermore, 'we have not allowed the craftsmen
so to indulge their whims as to cause the drawing not to correspond accurately
to the truth'.

Fuchs in 1542 described, in Latin, red and yellow garden carrots and wild carrots, but
names them all Pastinaca.
Fuchs illustrates red and yellow carrots, although the red is definitely shaded
towards purple.

Rembert Dodoens (1517-1585)

The famous Flemish physician and botanist Rembertus Dodonaeus is best known for his herbal Cruydeboeck (more
precisely: Cruijdeboeck, as the title is printed on the title page), written in old Flemish and published in 1554.
The scans shown below were made from a coloured copy, which is in the library of the Rijksmuseum in
Amsterdam, Holland. All wood cuts, initials of the chapters and title pages are
hand coloured, by the Dutch artist Hans Liefrinck (1520-1573). (click on images for full page version)

t was illustrated by 715 woodcuts of plants, including many copies from
those in the Fuch's herbal. Dodoens' used Fuchs as his model
for the description of each plant. The method of arrangement is his own. He
indicates the localities and times of flowering in the Low Countries,
information that could not have been derived from an earlier writer.

It is written in Latin and later translated and enhanced by Henry Lyte (below). Also much of Dodoens
work is repeated by Gerard's translation (also below).

Yellow Carrot and Red Carrot

Wild Carrot

Pastinaca Sativus Rubens

Rembert Dodoens

Pastinaca Silvetris tenuifolia

>

Henry Lyte (1529 - 1607) was an English botanist and
antiquary who published "A niewe Herball" (1578), which was a translation of the
Cruydeboeck of Rembert Dodoens (Antwerp, 1564). This herbal, or historie of plants
was subtitled "Wherein is contained the whole discourse and perfect description of all sorts of herbs
and plants." Written in old English, it is a fascinating summary of
the carrot at the time in England. Basically an English copy of Dodoens earlier
work.

He did not perhaps
add very
greatly to the knowledge of English botany, but
he did a
valuable service in introducing Dodoens'
herbal into England. He said the root of the garden carrots (compared to wild)
is more convenient and better to be eaten.

The title of Lyte's book is as follows: 'A Niewe Herball or
Historie of Plantes : wherin is contayned the whole discourse and perfect
description of all sortes of Herbes and Plantes : their divers and sundry
kindes : their straunge Figures, Fashions, and Shapes : their Names,
Natures, Operations, and Vertues : and that not onely of those which are
here growyng in this our Countrie of Englande, but of all others also of
forrayne Realmes, commonly used in Physicke. First set foorth in the
Doutche or Almaigne tongue, by that learned D. Rembert Dodoens, Physition
to the Emperour : And nowe first translated out of French into English, by
Henry Lyte Esquyer.'

Of Carrots (Chap xxxviii)

(note this has been edited by
the Carrot museum Curator for ease of reading)

The Kinds - There be three sortes of Carrots, yealow and red whereof two be
tame of the garden, the third is wild growing of it selfe.

The Description -

1.The yealow Carrot hath dark greene leaves, all cut and hackt almost like
the leaves of Chervil, but a great deal browner, larger, stronger, and smaller
cut. The root is thicke and long, yealow both without and within and is used to
be eaten in meates.

2. The red Carrot is like to the aforesaid in the cuts of his leaves, and in
stalks, flowers and seed. The root is likewise long and thicke, but of a purple
red colour both within and without.

3. The wilde is not much unlike garden Carrot, in leaves stalks and flowers,
saving the leaves be a little rougher, and not so much cut or jagged. In the
middle of the flowry tufts amongst the white flowers groweth one or two little
purple marks or specks. The seede is rougher and the root smaller and harder
than the other Carrots.

The Place - 1 & 2 the manured or tamed Carrot is sowne in
gardens; 3 the wild groweth in the borders of fields, by high waies & paths, and
in

rough untoiled places.

The Time -Carrots do flower in June and July, and their seed is ripe in
August.

He went on to describe its vertues which included, "cleaning evil blood";
"seeds to provoketh urine"; "this root hath the power to increase love".

The roots made into powder helped the "liver, spleen, kidnies and guarded
against gravel".

Wild Carrot provoketh womens flowers, and drunk with wine helped in
childbirth. It also good against venom and the bitings & stings of venomous
beasts.

The greene leaves of Carrots "boiled with honey and laid to, do cleanse and
mundifie (purify) uncleane and fretting sores" (- a type of poultice)

1554 - Petri Andreae Matthioli - a doctor and
naturalist born in Siena, write "Medici Senensis Commentarii, in Libros sex Pedacii
Dioscoridis Anazarbei, de Materia Medica, Adjectis quàm plurimis plantarum &
animalium imaginibus, eodem authore", also known as Commentarii - Discorsi
("Commentaries") on the Materia Medica of Dioscorides.. (image right shows
Pastinaca Sativa and Pastinaca Sylvestris, probably parsnip!) He was a
careful student of botany and described 100 new plants and progressed medical
botany in his time.

1555 - Allied to the work of Matthioli - Acerca de la
materia medicinal y de los venenos mortiferos(About medicinal matters
and deadly poisons). This is another version of the work of Dioscorides
Pedanius, of Anazarbos,translated by Andrés de Laguna, ‏1499-1559.

This book exemplifies the transfer of knowledge across
the centuries. During the first century, the Greek doctor and apothecary
Dioscorides, who is considered the father of pharmacology, wrote a very
important document on botany and pharmaceuticals. In the 10th century, during
the times of ʻAbd al-Rahman III (891−961), caliph of Cordova, the work was
translated into Arabic. In 1518 at the Escuela de Traductores de Toledo (the
School of Translators of Toledo), Antonio de Nebrija made the first
translation of the work in Spain into Latin. In 1555 in the city of Antwerp
(present-day Belgium, then ruled by Spain), the publisher Juan Lacio (circa
1524–66) published a Spanish translation from the Latin, which was done by
Andrés Laguna, the doctor of the Pope Julius III. On his frequent trips to
Rome, Laguna consulted a variety of codices as well as the books on medicinal
plants produced in Venice by the herbalist Pietro Andrea Matthioli. (source:
Library of Congress
https://www.wdl.org/en/item/10632/) Note: Both images were identical,
Laguna decided to add colour, thus confirming the existence of purple (or
deep red) roots in the 16th century.

Mattoli

Andrés de Laguna

John Gerard's Herball - The General Historie of Plants
1597 -
It relies heavily on previously published texts, most notably plagiarising a
translation Dodoens' Latin Herbal of 1583 (see above).

The original Herbal of 1597 contained the description,
times, places, nature and vertues of all sorts
of Herbs for meate, medicine, or sweet smelling use.

It has long been
considered one of the most famous of English herbals. It was republished in 1633 revised and enlarged by Thomas Johnson in an
edition that retained much of the original Elizabethan text. The 1633
edition contains some 2850 descriptions of plants and about 2700 illustrations.

Stinking and Deadly Carrots - both the plants
are Thapsia, a relative
of carrots.

Gerard added 182 new plants and appended some of his own observations.
The work is a valuable source for the culinary historian, not only to
prove certain plants were known at this time, but also to see how they
were used.

(Jacob Fischer, Frankfurt am Main, 1611) a German version of his "Pedacii
Dioscoridis de materia medica libri sex" first published in Venice 1558.

(Click Image for larger version)

A Curious Herbal, "containing five hundred
wood cuts, of the
most useful plants, which are now used in the practice of physick :
engraved on folio copper plates, after drawings taken from the life by
Elizabeth Blackwell. To which is added a short description of ye plants
and their common uses in physick."

This Herbal
was issued in weekly parts between 1737 and 1739, each part containing
four illustrated plates and a page of text. It was highly praised by
leading physicians and apothecaries (makers and sellers of medicines), and
made enough money to secure her husband's freedom.

Left is the depiction of Daucus Carota

“L’Erbario
Essiccato” del
laghitano Domenico Coscarelli - "The Herbarium Dried" of 1804 is a
unique manuscript, which collects and describes hundreds of species of the
plant kingdom, and it was exhibited at the Museo Correale di Sorrento
until 31 May 2007.

The author was born June 29, 1772 in Lake (CS), and was bearer of the
Princess Royal Regiment in the service of S. M. Ferdinand IV King of
Naples. The non-commissioned Bourbon was "a passionate naturalist" who had
among his many interests a passion to collect and dry herbs and draw,
mostly from traditional folk culture, information on their medicinal
qualities.

The image reads "Parts of this plant are beneficial for the stomach,
provoke urine and assist with the menstrual issues of women."

Finally ... for completeness ... The bizarre Voynich Manuscript - described as an elegant
enigma and the most mysterious book in the world, and "A Textbook of Medieval
Plant Physiology" - has long
been noted that some of the Voynich botanical illustrations suggest carrots.

Note the Carrot Museum does not endorse or agree
with the assumptions and assignment of carrot to any of the images or text, but
provides the information given below as a matter of interest only.
Neither the leaf nor root depictions show little or no similarity with Daucus
Carota. The script contains many somewhat carrot shaped,
orange/brown colored roots that one could forward a tenuous argument for several
images being carrot. Until someone in authority can come forward with a reliable
decoding and translation of the mystery script it is remains difficult to treat
it seriously.

The enigmatic Voynich manuscript, undecipherable to scholars for
more than a century, is a 16th century Mexican manuscript, according to a new
book written by Purdue University and Delaware State University professors.
Janick and Tucker conclude the Voynich Codex is a compendium of Aztec
knowledge that is largely medicinal and herbal but includes information on
astronomy, astrology and ritual bathing. The Voynich Codex is of extreme
historical importance as it contains seminal information of New Spain
unfiltered though Spanish or Inquisitorial censors.

Janick and Tucker are continuing to identify the plants pictured in the
Voynich manuscript and plan to continue publishing their findings.

The discovery, which also identifies the manuscript’s author and
illustrator, is a collaboration between Jules Janick, Distinguished Professor
of Horticulture at Purdue University, and Arthur O. Tucker, Emeritus Herbarium
Director at Delaware State University. Contributions to the book were made by
Fernando Moreira, a Canadian linguist, and Elizabeth A. Flaherty, a Purdue
wildlife ecologist.

The evidence is contained in “Unraveling the Voynich Codex,” recently
released by Springer Nature. Key evidence for the Mexican origin of the
Voynich Codex includes identification of Mexican plants and animals as well as
clarification of a kabbalah-like map that shows landmarks of central Mexico.

The three plants labelled “okae89″, show similarities. The one on f101v2 is said
to look
very much like a carrot, and the other two could also be carrots (There are several more images in the script which could be interpreted to
look more like carrots than the ones shown here!):

Update 2018 - Some academic papers (Purdue
University, Jules Janick)

- https://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/pdfs/hr44-ch1-phytomorphs.pdf

- https://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/pdfs/not-bot-2017-45.pdf

Some people claim to have deciphered the Voynich Manuscript - https://goo.gl/nLV4R1
- this claims that the language used in the manuscript is Turkish! this is
disproved by the Purdue research which definitviely proves it to be Mexican.